


When the Sky Comes Crashing Down (Kiss prompt #32)

by raiyana



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Life in Ered Luin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 14:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22497610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiyana/pseuds/raiyana
Summary: Minining tunnels collapsing aren't uncommon in Ered Luin, sadly... but rescue efforts are never in vain.Requested by witch-of-letters on tumblr.
Relationships: Thorin Oakenshield/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32
Collections: Raiyana's Personal Prompt Collection





	When the Sky Comes Crashing Down (Kiss prompt #32)

“Help! Help! There’s been a collapse in the North mine!”

The shout echoes down the streets, spreading from house to house with the speed of a dwarfling’s legs, and Thorin is out the door in seconds, abandoning the cup of kafh that he’d just poured with every intention of enjoying the first moment he’d had to sit down all day.

Those exact same words once made a widow of his sister, and Thorin dreads having to bear that news to another family.

He runs.

It is chaos, but organised, old Boggvur shouting orders like a hardened general, forming groups to go in and clear rubble – the tunnelers have already stabilised the shoring, Thorin realises, with a sigh of relief, though no one seems to know if anyone has been trapped, yet.

He goes in.

It’s dark, but not too dark for his eyes to see, and Thorin occupies himself with the hefting and hauling of stone and ore, filling barrow after barrow with debris that is taken back to the surface.

It takes hours – someone offers a waterskin at some point, along with a bit of cram – but none of the workers complain; news has filtered through that at least four were in this area when the roof caved in, and Thorin hardly expects to find survivors… but something to bury will help, he knows, and keeps digging.

* * *

Mori wakes in darkness of a kind she’s never known before, bashing her head on rock when she tries to sit up.

“You’re alive, then?” a voice wonders, once she’s stopped cursing.

“Almost wish I wasn’t,” Mori grumbles, suddenly aware of the bruises and cuts that seem to have found all of her limbs, and now she’s managed to split her forehead, too, the warmth of blood trickling into her hairline tells her.

“Don’t say that,” they hiss, and Mori is slightly cheered by the sudden touch of someone’s finger wrapping around one of hers. “We might yet be – Haraldr is.”

Mori swallows hard, realising that she can hardly move, stone above and below, like she’s in an egg… but these prison walls won’t fall without help, she knows, no idea how far from help they could be.

“I’m Moreidr,” she says, squeezing back. “And we’re going to be fine; they’re probably digging already.”

The dust in the air makes breathing difficult, but she knows better than to cough. It would only make things worse.

“Vani,” the other dwarf replies. They sound _young_ , and Mori’s heart aches.

“Are you hurt, Vani?” she asks. The small gap through which Vani’s fingers can reach her is the only opening in the wall that separates them large enough to be of any use, but the rocks – though stable for the moment – do not make a solid wall when she reaches over to investigate. It seems they’ve been saved by a small overhand, just enough to keep most of the rocks from crushing them, but Mori has no illusions that the luck of their small space will last.

“My left hand,” Vani admits, obvious pain in his voice, “it got crushed.”

Mori’s blood chills.

Mildly injured, a Dwarf can live for days buried in a rockfall, she knows, but Vani is at the very least losing blood, and in danger of going into shock.

“It’ll be well,” she says, trying to infuse her voice with all the confidence she can muster. “They’ll find us in no time.”

Vani doesn’t reply, but the fingers wrapped around hers squeezes again.

* * *

Thorin hears the singing first, feeling his heart lift at the sound.

_Survivors._

Even if it’s only one dwarf, that’s one less family he and Boggvur won’t have to visit with the worst kind of news.

It’s a drinking song, one of those that never ends, though he can’t tell the words, and Thorin hums a few bars, hearing it picked up by those around him as they move shale with as much care and speed as possible; his hands have been cut by more than one sharp edge, but the pain doesn’t matter.

 _There’s a survivor_.

* * *

They would find poor Haraldr first, Mori knew, but by now it was possible to hear the pickaxes ringing against the shale, and she felt more hopeful than she had for the past… her sense of time told her it had been a day’s passing, though it might as well have been a month.

The darkness unnerved her; she had tried to banish it by singing for a while but her voice – never the prettiest to begin with – was rough with the dust she had inhaled, and eventually she had to stop.

Vani, at least, was still alive, randomly timed squeezes of her fingers proof of that, and there was solace in that thought.

And in the thought that soon she would be out of this dark cramped space, preferably to be carried to a bed where no one would bother her for at least a day… well, maybe if _Thorin_ showed up, she’d let him salve her bruises or something. That would be nice.

* * *

“I knew you’d find us,” she says, face splitting in a weak imitation of the smile he has loved since forever.

Thorin strokes her cheek gently, lacking words to express the relief he feels – Mori shouldn’t even have been in the mines; as far as he knew her caravan wasn’t due back till tomorrow! – as he stares at her face, grimy and cut by stone splinters, but still heartbreakingly lovely.

Her lips are soft beneath his, so soft, her arms wrapping around his shoulders as she clings to him, lacking the strength to stand, but strong enough to keep him close.

Pulling away, Thorin blinks for a moment or twenty, watching Mori’s eyes turn from wide confusion to soft happiness.

And then her lips are pressed to his and it’s sweeter than he might have imagined, indulging in his ardent daydreams, and Thorin has to laugh with joy, stumbling into the light of early morning carrying the most precious treasure of all.


End file.
